DataBank CEO Raul Martynek is passionate about the internet, and said he loves telling people how it works.
Like, seriously. Colorful posters line the walls of his downtown Dallas offices, with visualizations and maps of the “whole internet,” submarine cables, the global internet and Africa telecommunications.
Born in Spain and raised in New York, Martynek’s career has taken him to places throughout the world. He most recently moved to Dallas in 2017, when he joined DataBank.
At the time, he said the “small” company had six data centers in three markets. They’ve since exploded to 65 across more than two dozen markets. In North Texas, the company has hubs in Dallas, Richardson, Plano and Red Oak.
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“Dallas — even before the AI boom — was a top five data center market in the U.S.,” Martynek said. “And with some of the other markets reaching some constraints around land, around power, like in Northern Virginia, Dallas is poised to continue to grow. Could it even challenge Ashburn in a couple years to be the dominant location for data center capacity here in the U.S.?”
He said if current course and speed continue, he thinks it will.
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Martynek recently gave The Dallas Morning News a tour of DataBank’s office and data center in the historic former Federal Reserve Bank building on Akard Street, and chatted about the future of the industry. Here are the highlights, edited for length and clarity:
Do you feel like your background prepared you to lead DataBank?
Martynek: “I’ve been in the internet infrastructure space since the advent of the commercial internet. When I got in in the mid ’90s, I used to walk around Manhattan convincing people they needed internet and being told, ‘No,’ right? So, I’ve seen the evolution of this kind of dynamic.
“I’ve run businesses in telecom and fiber, cell towers, cloud computing, negotiated submarine cable terminations in Sub-Saharan Africa. I’ve had a wonderful set of experiences that when I got here to DataBank, I felt like I was very well prepared to tackle what was here and help build a business.”
DataBank CEO Raul Martynek speaks with The Dallas Morning News during an interview at the Databank offices, Monday, Oct. 27, 2025, in Dallas.
Elías Valverde II / Staff Photographer
Do you remember the first time you heard about a data center?
Martynek: “It would have been in the in the late ’90s. You’re sitting in a building that would be considered first generation data center. So, even in the ’80s and ’90s, there were data centers but for the most part, they were owned by corporates. The IBMs of the world, back then, the GEs [General Electric] of the world had data processing so they had these data processing locations. There wasn’t third-party data centers.
“In the mid ’90s, when you walked into an office, every office had a data center. It was called a computer closet. People would buy computer equipment, storage, servers, networking and find some space in their office and install it there. That was because you had to get access through a local area network in your office because there was no internet to be able to access it from.
“When the internet emerged, people started to realize, wait a minute, we can ‘free’ this data from that physical location, and we can centralize it because there, we can protect it better from a security perspective, we can build more scale in terms of a building that can support it, we can cool it, we can power it, all that stuff. There was this kind of migration of this infrastructure out of these millions of locations in offices and in homes into the cloud. That’s what really started data centers.”
You’ve known about data centers for a long time, but it seems like everyone else is just now paying attention to them. Did that happen in a wave, all at once?
Martynek: “From a common knowledge perspective, it was the COVID pandemic [Martynek said this is when digital infrastructure rose to the level of importance as other traditional infrastructure.] and the advent of ChatGPT that made people aware of data centers.
“Ultimately, the adoption of that technology consumes a lot of data center space and power, and obviously has created just a crazy market. Now, data centers are in everyone’s vernacular.
“I was in an Uber this morning, coming from New York, and the Uber driver asked me what I do for work and I said, ‘I’m in technology.’ He goes, ‘What type of technology?’ I said, ‘Oh, data centers.’ He goes, ‘Oh, hey. Do you think I should buy into some of these power plants that are starting to support data centers?’ I’m like, whoa. When the Uber guy knows about the trends in data centers and the factors, you could say it’s hit mainstream.”
Various different fiber optic cables are seen entering into the DataBank data center, Monday, Oct. 27, 2025, in Dallas.
Elías Valverde II / Staff Photographer
Kind of on the same note, it seems like a lot of people believe AI is what’s driving the data center boom. AI is definitely a large part of it, but there are other factors, right?
Martynek: “Yes, ChatGPT and AI get all the news, but I like to reduce it to a much more fundamental kind of dynamic. If you think about what a data center really is, it’s kind of the foundation for technology adoption, broadly speaking. And if you look at humans, I think we’re addicted to technology.
“I think that there are a limitless number of usages and applications that technology can be applied to. We use technology now to entertain ourselves — streaming, to educate ourselves, to work, to perform every type of interaction we have, whether it be banking or news or communication. Long term, there’s no limit to what humans are going to figure out how to use technology and as technology gets adopted, it needs to go into a data center.
“So yes, AI is out there as the new technology trend that’s driving data center demand but we have 2,500 customers … No doubt, AI is kind of the newest trend, and the one that’s showing the greatest incremental adoption but there’s plenty more underneath the surface.”
Are there worries that we’re getting built out to capacity, especially in the near future? Or are we going to continue to grow?
Martynek: “There was a great article in the Wall Street Journal over the weekend about the word ‘bubble.’ They looked at the ‘dot-com’ era, at the mentions of the word ‘bubble,’ and how they kind of peaked up for several years. The gist of the article was just like the ‘dot-com’ era, people were talking about a bubble back then, and then something actually happened.
“It’s hard to say. I mean, I really believe in the long-term viability of this technology, but I’ve also been around long enough to know that people can get overexcited about how technology will get adopted. One of my favorite technology quotes is, ‘People tend to overestimate technology’s impact in the short run and underestimate it in the long run.’
“I think AI is probably following that trajectory right now in this particular moment, but I think if you look out 10 years, 15 years, there’ll be no doubt in my mind that this technology will be as transformative as the internet was. If you think about the world in 1995, we used to drive around with paper maps. We used to go to the library to look up things. We used to have to go to the office because you couldn’t work from home. The internet has already changed the way we live our lives, I see no reason why AI is not going to do the same thing.”
Is there anything you wish more people knew about what you do and your operations at DataBank?
Martynek: “Part of what’s happening with data centers, which is usual with any type of new trend, are people who are critical of data centers, saying we’re consuming all the power, using too much water, contributing to climate change. Ultimately, what’s paradoxical is that the expansion of data centers is driven by our own behavior.
“When you flip on TikTok and keep scrolling for two hours, well, guess what? You’re using data center infrastructure. When you get hundreds of emails per day that are spam, and then you just leave them in your inbox instead of permanently deleting them. Well, guess what? Those are stored somewhere, so that somewhere is using power that’s in the data center.
“I believe, like any resource, you want to be efficient and considerate and understand its impacts long term. I think what I would want people to appreciate is that it’s really our collective behavior that’s driving the demand for data centers, not the tech companies, not the data center companies, it’s really us as humanity.”
This reporting is part of the Future of North Texas, a community-funded journalism initiative supported by the Commit Partnership, Communities Foundation of Texas, The Dallas Foundation, the Dallas Mavericks, the Dallas Regional Chamber, Deedie Rose, Lisa and Charles Siegel, the McCune-Losinger Family Fund, The Meadows Foundation, the Perot Foundation, the United Way of Metropolitan Dallas and the University of Texas at Dallas. The News retains full editorial control of this coverage.